“It’s painful and it’s messy. But sometimes you just have to make the break and start again.” Tony Parsons

I feel like lately I’ve been spending a great deal of time trying to answer this question. Maybe not actually sitting around thinking about it and pondering, but every day, as I struggle with the various things we all face (how am I going to be a good Mom, get all of my work done, find time for myself to train for a triathlon, keep a clean house, make sure the laundry and the dishes are done … oh and put homemade food on the table… those kind of struggles) I try and think to myself that today is a new day. A new chance to start over. If what I’m doing itsn’t getting the job done in a way that I can live with it, then I try and embrace the new day, the new beginning to experiment with a new way of doing things that might lead to a more productive end result.

You can always start over with a new bike … hehe … n+1

For 2016, there are two triathletes in our house that are training for a full distance triathlon. Let’s look a little bit at what this kind of starting over looks like for us this year.

Starting over… training for 140.6 miles is no joke. It becomes one of your jobs on your list of things to do each day. Training can’t be skipped or avoided, but needs to be a priority that is accounted for when planning the days. If it’s not a priority it won’t happen.

Plans, plans and more plans!

Staring over… we are following two different training plans. Coordination! Coordination between us is going to be the key to making this works. We both need to be on the same page in making sure that we allot time to get the workouts in while also alloting time to get kids ready for school, do homework, cook dinner, read bed time stories, go on grand adventures and so much more.

Starting over… after a year off long course training and a rather unproductive off-season, just finding the motivation to make sure I get the workouts in can be my challenge for the day sometimes. But I’ve been solidly on a base building plan since February 1 and I think short of the day that I cut a swim short and rescheduled a tempo run, I’m on target in making sure I get the training done.

And the best part about starting over…

Starting over… this year I’m racing with #TeamRev3 as part of their age group team. I am telling you now that this is one of the greatest opportunities that I have before me. I have already met some really fantastic people at their Team Summit event in January. I’ve made wonderful connections and am working my darndest to hit the ground running with ideas and work to help this fantastic company maintain and increase their customer base. I truly believe in all that Rev3 stands for and all that they put into and behind their races.

So, 2016 involves a lot of starting over, but as I sat thinking about all that lies ahead of me in the coming year, I am trying to look upon it in this same fashion, as a new beginning. 2016 is a new day, a new chance to do something different; to try a new way and to ultimately seek a different result. Things are different in life this year, but I’m looking at all of these new & different things as opportunities rather than challenges.

Because the things that challenge you are indeed opportunities to push harder, to look from another angle and to hopefully improve as you move forward.

What the heck happens when you’re on a hiatus for this long? What does happen? I wish I could tell you in a really succinct way why I’ve been absent for this long. I always think about the blog and want to write, but I just haven’t been making it a priority.

My priorities have been more basic!

My priorities over the last several months have included spending time with the kids, training, being all over the place and just plain being unorganized in my life and in my head. I have been all over the place.

Additionally, I am a true introvert. This doesn’t mean that I don’t like people. Although truthfully, there are a great deal of people who I don’t like. But what it does mean is that I enjoy being by myself sometimes. And sometimes, I really need that time by myself to refill my own cup and be ready to go out and face the world. It wasn’t until both my boyfriend and one of my best friends asked why I don’t ever blog any more that I realized that this had happened here as well. They indicated that they missed hearing my voice. And while I missed the point of interaction, I didn’t yet miss my own voice either.

My voice has been stuck in kiddo mode and it’s been fun!

Until today. Today I started thinking about why I don’t make time to sit down with my own thoughts and I started thinking about how much I miss sharing my pictures and some of my amazing journeys right here for all of you to see and for me to reference far into the future.

Look at what has been missing! I jumped off a boat for crying out loud!

So, with that I’m setting an intention to be back and be here as much as possible. I’ve got a bunch of new challenges and goals on the horizon and if nothing else I love to share my pictures. #Onward!

So, we’re back. We’re ready to party and we’ve signed up for another Ironman. Game time? Let’s go!

Happy Friday Friends!!!! This girl has been uber busy. So let’s get a little recap of what’s been going on.

I went to Utah!

I joined Laurie in her quest to conquer Ironman St. George 70.3 as her official race sherpa. Let me tell you…. Utah is an unbelievably gorgeous place. It was ridiculously hot when we were there, but we made the best of it and spent our days either doing race related stuff or exploring awesome places in our weeklong journey like Zion National Park, Snow Canyon and Valley of Fire State Park.

Laurie – Getting ready to swim!

Zion!

A beautiful day in a beautiful park.

Petroglyphs in Valley of Fire State Park

I’ve been training, training, training!

I’m managing to get most everything in. It’s not perfect, but I’m trying. I even headed out for my first open water swim of the season earlier this week. I unfortunately did not take any pictures, but it was an amazingly beautiful night and I swam a calm and peaceful 1.1 miles in a pretty stellar time for me. I was so happy when I got out of the lake. I’m hoping that I can channel that swim moving forward.

This is how you pack to go to Lake Placid for the weekend? Is it not?

Minnesoooooooota

I even managed to get in my training while I was out town for work in Minnesota. I had the great pleasure of spending time with one of my Swim Bike Mom Ambassador teammates. We met up one night for dinner and shenanigans and then the next day for an 11 mile run. The run wasn’t all pretty, but we did it. And Teresa… what a rockstar. So fortunate to be included in this great group of triathlete ladies!

All of this for what? WHAT! It’s just two more short weeks until my first 70.3 of the season. I’m looking forward to seeing what I can do and then moving forward from there. I think I’m ready. Time will tell.

And I’m packing for Escape the Cape Olympic Tri!

There are four of us (sorry Kenny…. you didn’t make the picture) heading down to Cape May later today to participate in this crazy pants race. We’ll be jumping off the ferry into the ocean on Sunday morning to start my first triathlon of the season. Fingers crossed that the water isn’t totally freezing and that I can swim faster than the sharks!

I’ll be back with an update. I’m off to face the weekend…. Insert Jaws theme song here!

A lot of people are familiar with relay running races, think Ragnar and Reach the Beach. Last fall, we hatched crazy plan to complete a different relay, The Seneca 7. This relay is 77.7 miles completed by 7 different runners around Seneca Lake starting and ending in Geneva, NY. I had been watching this race for a couple of years. I’m always up for group races because they’re fun and this looked to be one of those opportunities. In fact, Seneca 7 took it one step further and gave the option of a “bike team” So typically in a relay, runners take turns running their legs while the rest of the team drives from point to point in a van. With the bike team option, you no longer have a van and instead you use bikes as your main transport around the lake when you are not running. This means that in addition to running your 11 ish miles, you would also be biking somewhere on the order of 66 miles. Last fall when registration opened for Seneca 7 not only did the bike option sound like a good challenge, but they opened registration up to bike teams a day early. This was pretty much all it took to force our hand and have us forking over our credit cards to sign up a team. Thus, our team, Tri Harder, was born.

5/7ths of the Team… I never got a full group shot!

I will admit that we didn’t give this race a whole ton of thought. With everyone training for Ironman, or Half Ironman, etc. This was just going to be a training day. We did have one team meeting to figure out how in the world we were going to get everyone around the lake with 6 bikes. See 7 people, one always running means that we could only bring 6 bikes unless we had a trailer or something to haul the additional bike with. We did not … so 6 bikes it was! We had the following for bikes … 2 52 inch bikes, 2 54 inch bikes 2 56 inch bikes and one monster 58 inch bike. Our solution was simply that the middle-sized people would need to rotate around on bikes, riding a variety of sizes. Time would tell how that would work.

We headed out to Geneva in waves on Saturday due to different commitments everyone had. My group grabbed some lunch at the Crooked Rooster Brew Pub with my family which was super yummy and it was a great opportunity to see them since this race was only an hour and a half or so from my childhood home. From there we headed to Geneva to check in for the race and head to the pre-race briefing where we found out that we were one of only 20 total bike teams for the race.

Special goody bags for the bike teams!

After getting the briefing and collecting all of our bags we headed out to check into our hotel for the night and pack our bags. Turns out that packing our bags for the relay was semi time-consuming and stressful as it required a lot of thinking and rethinking to get the right things in there that would work for the weather throughout the day. Remember, no van to store things in and we needed to be self-sufficient minus a special needs bag drop half way around the lake. The forecast was for a 65 degree day, but we’d be starting the day in 35 degree temps. So, tights, jackets, hats, gloves, all the way to shorts, tank tops, sunglasses, etc. Oy! After a yummy dinner of pizza and some pasta for some at a local restaurant, we head back to the hotels to tuck our little heads into some pretty ish-ka accommodations for the evening.

This is how we pass the time!!!! At a sketch hotel!

Wake up call for the day came at some ridiculous hour like 4:30 am. I distinctly remember Ben turning on the hotel room light and my screaming out that the light was like “standing on the face of the sun.” Laurie kindly asked me if I had experience with that. I don’t know what my reply was but I most definitely know that I was not ready to get up!!!! Regardless I did it. We packed things up and headed over to Dunkin Donuts for some morning breakfast. At this point we found out that one of our seven team members, Alex, had been throwing up for most of the morning. Oh boy! The day was very young and already interesting. After getting some breakfast we headed to the start line and to the Geneva bike shop to have our bikes checked out prior to the start of the race. After everyone was checked and cleared we made some last-minute team swaps (i.e. lets not have the puking member be runner 1) we were on our way!

Scarlet Making her 2015 Debut as a Race Vehicle!

Laurie led us out as runner one picking up for Alex as the sick runner. She managed to run the first leg with her camelback back pack in place. We quickly decided the that backpacks were the biggest problem in this whole bike/run/bike/run scenario. Who the heck wants to ride their bike with a 20 pound back pack on their back? I’m fine with it for 3 miles, but 66? Not so much.

We biked and biked from leg 1 to leg 2 to leg 3 and then leg 4…. my leg! We always sent our runner ahead to the leg they were running so they could get ready, meaning change into whatever they were running in, eat some food, relax for like five minutes and get ready to run. So leg 4 …

My first run leg

This run was quality for me. I was a little irritated when I started out and people were flying by me. Then I remember that we were on a downhill … Turns out that gravity doesn’t work for people once we are back on flat ground. What do I mean by that? There were several I recaught once we were not running downhill. My splits were good and minus the giant climb over some railroad tracks at the end, I remember distinctly thinking that running was great during this race.

After finishing this first leg, I felt pretty good. I don’t know why, but I was really worried about how I’d feel running off the bike. Turns out that the answer was good. So at this point I was happy to keep at our mission of getting around Seneca Lake. Ok, ok, so biking, biking, biking. And then it’s my turn again at Clute Park in Watkins Glen. As we were biking down into Watkins Glen for this leg, I am certain that the temperature dropped at least 10 degrees. It was totally bizarre, but we talked about it and we all felt a drastic drop in temps. Also, part way down I spotted a stopped biker and opted to stop and see if he needed assistance. As it turned out, he had several flats and was in need of a canister of air. I gave him two of mine, only one of which seemed to be good. He was able to inflate his tire and keep at it.

Clute park was a major exchange for everyone as it was the halfway point of the race and a turning point as we had to head up and out of the this thing. There were also special needs bags available to the bikers as needed. While we had some warmer clothes etc in our bag, nothing was really needed so we opted to just ditch things that were weighing down our back packs at this point. In fact, we opted to dismantle one team members bag entirely, Laurie, so that we could no longer do the one person is carrying two peoples bag thing per leg.

My second running leg

So yeah, leg 2. This leg mostly consisted of heading straight uphill. Good times! The good thing here is that at least after all of my teammates passed me on their bikes, they truly appreciated how steep these hills were. Yeah, yikes! This was a ridiculous leg, but I was able to keep in mind that it was only 3.5 miles. Not that long! After this it was time for me for some serious mental recovery. I really needed to step out of this thing for a minute or I was going to have a tough time at the final leg.

I finished up leg 2 super happy to be done for a bit!

Unfortunately at this point in the race is where we started to get a little bit discouraged. The bike teams were promised water at several exchanges to refill bottles. After we passed through Clute Park, every exchange that promised water was out. Now don’t get me wrong, I understand running out. However, I do not understand not getting more. Here we are … a bike team. We have nowhere to carry extra water. In addition, the route that we were traveling on had NO rest stops or gas stations at which we could buy extra water. So, what the heck?! We had to beg water off from van teams who might have extra available. This was NOT ok with me and we let race volunteers know it. Yes, they are only volunteers but they need to deliver that feedback to race directors. Anyway. Back to biking, biking, biking.

I haven’t ridden this stead this much in a long time!

I don’t know what number leg it was, but during one of Laurie’s runs I decided to add some additional fun to the mix. As I was climbing a small hill about a mile from the next exchange, my bike felt funny. I looked down and sure enough, I had a flat. Great. Two of my teammates, Lonnie & Jeff, quickly rode up behind me. This was a flash back to another race that I had been at with them when Jeff got a flat and NONE of us could change it to save our lives. So Scarlet has a flat. I knew that we weren’t far from an exchange point and for some reason I thought that we might be able to throw an air canister in it and keep it inflated to the exchange where I would have more time and expertise to change it. First, remember that I gave one of my canisters away to the biker with the flat on the hill in Watkins Glen. The other canister in my bag was spent and had somehow gotten back in there. Fortunately Jeff had canisters. After messing up two, I made the decision to change the tired. We had limited canisters with us and we needed to be able to inflate my tire. Also, this race has no bike SAG. Anyhow, I quickly pulled off the tire, took out the tube, put in a new tube after removing a staple from my wheel and with a little monkeying around with yet another canister we were on our way. Boom! As my teammates know I am pretty proud of this tire change. I’ve never gotten a flat on my bike while on a ride. So, I was happy with the expertise with which I was able to change it. I guess I’ve watched it being done enough times.

Jeff & the Ladies… Relaxin!

We continued to make our way through exchange points. We were slow but maintaining the pace we had set out to run. There was still no water on the course but we managed to get a one gallon jug from another team. Fortunately that filled many of our bottles and lifted our spirits a little bit.

Several of us had our last run leg through part of Sampson State Park. That was a nice change of pace. It was much quieter and evening was slowly starting to set it. This also meant that it was getting chillier quickly as the sun was going down. We were all beginning to layer back up.

Last Run Leg

Fortunately, my last run went in a general downward direction. At this point I was tired, so I’m glad that I wasn’t climbing anything. It would have been ugly. I was able to once again pick off some folks who thought that they’d get me on the downhill. And this run was right near the lake so it made for a nice night-time view. I finished up the run and was happy to put my sneakers away for the day. However, I was not as happy to be getting back on my bike. Fortunately I knew that I only had about ten miles left to ride.

Look, they’re smiling

The last few legs people started to get a little silly and giddy. Or maybe that was just Ben… Anyway, the promise of finishing was just around the corner and after a long day on our bikes and on our feet we were ready to be done. All in all the relay took us something like 13 hours to finish. We were right on target with our projected running pace. Unfortunately, it was dark enough at the finish that again, we didn’t get a good team picture. Ah well. Maybe next time! Ha ha ha.

Holla for the exchange point!

All in all, the Seneca 7 was a good experience and I am glad that we did it. There are some logistical things that the race directors really need to work on. These things include the water on the course for the bike teams. It also includes more port o potties. Again, we can’t wander away to some obscure place to use the rest room as a bike team and we often found ourselves waiting a very long time to try to use the bathroom. Lastly, with this many van teams and all of the bike teams, the roads got a little bit dangerous from time to time. There needs to be a bit of attention paid to van drivers about sharing the road with the bikers in the race. It got a little hairy out there!

This is where I started to lose my mind…

In the end, it was a good race on a beautiful day with some of my very best peeps. And no, I did not eat Ben or go crazy! So, we will call it a win!

Yep, that’s me. I’ve had a blah two weeks and thus I’m so far behind in updating you on training etc. Rest assured that I’ve been getting it in… for the most part. So a quick update!

Weeks 5 & 6:

The good –

I started a new swim “class” with Excel Aquatics. Since I’ve been doing triathlons I have never spent much time improving my swim. I’ve gone to masters but they don’t work much on form, but rather just give you a workout to complete. So this class is all about improving form, proper technique etc. I’m two weeks in and thus far loving it. Fingers crossed that it pays off!

Despite a busy work schedule I’ve been getting most of the workouts in. Things have been nuts but minus a small workout here or there, I’m still getting it in. It’s a balancing act at times, but I’m managing.

I have my first “race” of the season this weekend. Well, it’s a relay so not really a race. Myself and six of my crazy friends are participating in the Seneca 7 relay this weekend. We are a bike team so while our runner is out running, the rest of us will be biking for exchange point to exchange point. This will make for 77 miles of switching between biking and running. My fingers are crossed that the weather forecast remains good otherwise it could be a very long day!

I also enjoyed a beautiful hike on a blustery day with one of my greatest friends. We covered something like 6.5 miles at Mohonk Preserve. I love it there and I loved having the chance to talk and catch up.

A beautiful ray of sunshine at Mohonk.

The Not So Great –

Work has been crazy. The kids were all on vacation from school last week and that was followed up by a conference out-of-town. I’ve struggled a bit and a few workouts have been dropped. This is ok, but I struggle with it because I was doing so well hitting every thing. I just keep reminding myself that it’s OK as long as it’s not a habit.

I’ve been having wonky things going on with my sneakers. I bought a new pair and I think they’re a 1/2 size too big. So, my feet feel really weird. Because of this I dug out an older pair that hadn’t quite outlived their life, but I have to figure out which shoes are going to really work for me. The never-ending shoe shuffle makes me crazy.

I still haven’t found (made) the time to get to yoga. I haven’t mentioned it here but I really miss going to yoga. I haven’t been in ages. I’m hoping to find a time once a week to get there. I just have to make it a priority and thus far I haven’t done it. Hopefully next week.

I still haven’t gotten my bike outside. My schedule has been too nuts and/or the weather has been uncooperative. It seems that spring is here to stay and since I have that little relay this weekend, this will be changed for sure!

A hotel bike ride… must get outside!

So overall things are on track. I’ve had a few little bumps and I clearly need to get some new sneakers but otherwise things are going well.

Week 5:

Swimming: 3500 yrds

Biking: 51.5 miles

Running: 14 miles

Week 6:

Swimming: 7525 yrds

Biking: 87 miles

Running: 9 miles

When you look at the numbers you can sort of figured out what I missed each week. As someone in my house reminds me, it’s in the past. Move on from it. So, I’m moving on … into this week. Onward! Right into Seneca 7. What are you up to this weekend?

I’m a day or two late on this one. As I had mentioned last week, week four was a recovery week. After three solid weeks of training, I was ready for a little bit of a step back and the chance for a catch up on all things life.

I’ve been pretty happy to work hard, but I was definitely ready for a little mental recharge. I think that this is something that I have underestimated in the past. Previously I’ve had recovery weeks, but with less structure and guidelines. This time, the parameters were clearly defined and even when I was training, I wasn’t allowed to push hard. So, here is the week in review!

I’m continuing to not only get to the pool but to also see gains. They’re not huge gains, but in my book a gain is a gain, especially when you consider that I seldom ever see them as it relates to swimming.

I got meds for my skin issues. I finally broke down last week and went the doctors for my pool induced itchiness. Of course they had no clue what the cause was but with some steroids and some additional allergy meds I can report that it’s all cleared up.

As much restraint as it took, I didn’t over do any of the workouts. I completed them as written by the coach.

I even had the pleasure of doing a run with no time requirements, no pace or zone timers and just a distance goal. A luxury I hadn’t really seen in almost four full weeks.

The not so great –

I felt a little lazy all week with the decreased training load. I recognize I wasn’t being lazy, just felt that way.

I was so excited to do a 6 mile run with no parameters that I ran outside even though it was forecasted to rain and be cold. It rained most of the way and it was cold. I was pretty miserable by the time I finished that run, which was a bummer because I had really been looking forward to it.

And on that super special rainy run my left foot started to hurt. Again, fortunately for the recovery week I’ve been able to keep the mileage super low and it definitely hasn’t gotten any worse and after running a bit yesterday I can report that it’s feeling better, but really? I mean. Come on. No need for hurt.

Looking forward… So this week we are back at it with the recovery week being completed. The volume is a little less than it was before I headed into recovery week, but the intensity is up. In fact I got an email from my coach just last night telling me to “have fun the next three weeks. Bwahahahaha!” Not gonna lie, this makes me a little bit nervous, but I’m hoping that I am up for the challenge. So here we go.

WAHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! I made it and I’m still alive. I finished week three and I’m here to tell about it. Ok, ok, so this is a little dramatic, but I was NERVOUS. Many of you are reading this and thinking… It’s week 3, what is the big deal.

Let me back up. During the off-season I fell back to my roots a bit. I basically hung my goggles up and racked my bike and stuck mostly to running for the winter. I personally find it to be quite an accomplishment, especially when you consider the ridiculous winter that we had… I mean are still having here in Upstate NY. So any way, I ran. Not a remarkable distance but enough so that when my coach was laying out the beginning of my training plan we were able to start with long runs at 10 miles. (According to the coach… He was “given a gift!” haha!) What does all of this mean? All of this means that my long runs and long rides for my HALF Ironman training are already pretty long. So each week I’m a little nervous when I look at those particular workouts, hence the major celebration about completing this week.

You can tell training is back in full swing just by the dishes!

Ok week 3 reports are as follows:

The Good:

I swam A.LOT! Yep. A lot. Honestly, I’m getting in all of my swim workouts and this continues to be a huge deal for me. Swim has always been the first thing that I skip and/or shorten. Knowing that my coach is going to be looking for the actual data from my Garmin keeps me swimming whether I always like it or not. I’m also pretty sure that all of this swimming is making some improvements for me.

I ran strong. I’ve been a bit hesitant about these long runs that I’m given. They’re written as a one mile warm up followed by intervals and a one mile cool down. I have never done this on a long run. Long runs have always been LSD, long slow distance runs. So they make me a little nervous because I’m afraid I’ll peter out before the end. But I’ve been quite enjoying them. Using the interval format makes the workout go faster mentally as I’m only focusing on that 3 or 5 minute interval and not how many miles I have left to go.

I think I’m figuring out some of my bike saddle issues. As many of you know… spending a lot of time on your bike trainer is not something to be taken lightly. I’m working on my comfort. One ride at a time.

My training peaks account is all green with completed workouts!

And I got to virtually meet my Swim Bike Mom Ambassador Teammates via some funny facebook videos we made this weekend. It was so much fun. These ladies are incredibly inspiring.

The Not So Great:

I’m in the midst of battling a really annoying rash. I attribute this to all of the swimming. I have never had a skin issue in my life ever before. I’m hoping it will get sorted out soon. In the meantime, I’m swimming at a different pool this week and arming myself with Vaseline prior to getting in the water. (Anyone else have this happen? Suggestions?)

This weather. Upstate NY has not gotten the memo about spring. It’s making it difficult to get outside for training. So far this hasn’t been a huge issue and I’m managing to rearrange my schedule for outdoor long runs etc, but come on weather, just shape up so we can get outside full-time ok? OK!

And yeah I think that’s it.

I can say that I’m standing here on day one of recovery week feeling pretty darn good. I feel confident in my training. I am really enjoying my new coaching relationship as I’m being pushed a bit more than I’m used to and thus far my body is rising to the challenge. And I am feeling great because my training is a bit less intense this week… ala recovery week. Trust me, I enjoy the high weeks where it’s all go go go, but taking a minute for the recovery and having a chance to look around is going to be great.